A stent is a structure which is designed to maintain the patency of a bodily vessel. Stents are delivered to a desired bodily location in an unexpanded configuration having a reduced cross-section and expanded to a configuration having an increased cross-section. Stents are typically self-expandable or mechanically expandable. Examples of self-expandable and mechanically expandable stents are disclosed in WO 9626689 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,042,597.
It is desirable for a stent to be flexible in the unexpanded configuration to facilitate delivery of the stent through tortuous vessels and to have a sufficient degree of rigidity in the expanded configuration to support a vessel. It is also desirable for a stent in the expanded configuration to provide sufficient vessel coverage.
Although a vast number of stent designs have been disclosed in recent years, there remains a need for innovative stent designs which are flexible in the unexpanded configuration and which exhibit improved coverage characteristics in the expanded configuration. There also remains a need for stents with improved expansion ratios relative to current stents.
All U.S. patents and applications and all other published documents mentioned anywhere in this application are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
The invention in various of its embodiment is summarized below. Additional details of the invention and/or additional embodiments of the invention may be found in the Detailed Description of the Invention below.